Oct. 21, 2013

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Indianapolis Colts receiver Reggie Wayne tore an anterior cruciate ligament during Sunday's victory over Denver and is out for the season. / Matt Kryger / The Star

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On most Mondays, Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano reads the injury list in a steady monotone, ticking off the players and what their diagnosis and prognosis might be.

This Monday was different.

This Monday, his voice quavered, filled with deep sadness and emotion.

Reggie Wayne.

Gone for the season.

Gone forever?

He’s 34, 35 next month. He’s having surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Sadly, there are no guarantees. Just ask Marvin Harrison. After his knee injury in 2007 — he was 35 when it happened — he was never the same, only playing one additional season.

“You hate to lose anybody, but this one stings,” Pagano said softly. “You just don’t replace guys like (No.) 87. He’ll be back. I know how he’s wired. I know what his DNA is, know how he is as a man. Everybody’s going to say ‘no way,’ but after the conversation I just had with him, just wait and see.”

He continued.

“He’s not going out like this,” Pagano said. “No way.”

There’s “next man up,” and then there’s this.

Because with Wayne, one of the greatest players in Colts history and an unrivaled leader in that locker room, simply mouthing “Next man up” rings terribly hollow.

There are three players the Colts could not afford to lose this year: Andrew Luck, Robert Mathis and Wayne.

This is a punch in the gut, the worst possible news that could have come out of an otherwise inspiring victory over the Denver Broncos.

And it raises some difficult questions:

• Can Wayne recover, fully recover, and become the type of player he’s always been? We’re not talking about a lineman here; we’re talking about a wide receiver, for whom speed and cutting ability are everything.

The history of the NFL is littered with the names of players who’ve recovered nicely from ACL surgery. The most recent notables are Robert Griffin III and Darrelle Revis. But it’s still a long, tough recovery, and the fact remains, Wayne is older than those players, even if he doesn’t play like he is. The ACL is a devastating diagnosis for any athlete, and it’s a long, tough rehabilitation.

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• Can the Colts recover? They’re sitting pretty now at 5-2, two games ahead of Tennessee in the division, and the schedule gets much softer the rest of the season. But how far can they ultimately go without Wayne?

This has the potential to be a season-changer, but my sense is, the Colts won’t let it become one. As valuable as Wayne is, it’s viable to believe that somebody from the receiving corps will step up, whether it’s T.Y. Hilton or Darrius Heyward-Bey or even practice squad player Griff Whalen. (And you can bet that General Manager Ryan Grigson is working the phones looking for a wide receiver before that Oct. 29 trade deadline.)

All you have to do is look back one season ago. The Colts lost their head coach, their leader, and stepped up in his absence and won 11 games, making the playoffs. There will be no pity party at West 56th Street. They’ll move on, because it’s what they do.

This happened countless times during the Peyton Manning era, and Manning somehow found ways to make players out of guys like Craphonso Thorpe and Devin Aromashodu. Great quarterbacks raised the level of play of everyone around them. Andrew Luck has that inside him.

It helps, too, that this remains a balanced team that can win with special teams and defense when the offense isn’t working at peak efficiency. That’s how they beat the Niners, Seahawks and Broncos, three teams that are 17-1 against the rest of the NFL. That’s how they can and will continue to win now.

Here’s what shouldn’t happen:

Luck cannot beat himself up over this.

It wasn’t his fault.

After the game, he sounded like he was blaming himself not only for short-hopping a pass to a wide-open Wayne, but for creating the non-contact injury when Wayne had to adjust to the errant pass. When he spoke to the media Monday, he still sounded like he was taking responsibility.

“Looking back at it today (Monday) there was really no one within 30 yards of him; he probably would have scored if I gave him a decent ball,” Luck said. “So I feel somewhat responsible for the whole thing. I feel sick to my stomach about it a little bit but I realize it’s football. I don’t think Reggie wants me holding it over my head. After the game, though, a big part of me felt like it was a loss because of the loss of Reggie and my involvement in it.”

Nonsense.

It was a fluke, a major fluke considering that Wayne has been a picture of durability, playing in 189 consecutive games. It was non-contact. Things happen. It’s football, a mean game.

“He wore the (orange) gloves for me last year,” Pagano said. “We’ll wear the gloves for him now.”

Wayne will not let this be his last chapter as a Colt and as a football player. Bank on it.

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